Ann Voskamp’s (One Thousand Gifts) six children are seated at the table, waiting for a dinner that already is late. Yet Ann’s husband excitedly wants to share the harvest moon he’s just observed with her. As they run off to see the moon, Ann becomes aware that until the present moment she hadn’t even noticed she’d been hungry for Beauty, having been too embroiled in the busyness of the day.
Ann then realizes that she wants to see more beauty, more of God’s glory, because she’s made to give God glory. Beauty, she notes, simply is- and transcends mere physical beauty. No explanation or justification is required. We may not even have words to describe such transcendent beauty. And God is the source of all beauty. Ann explains this desire:
“Isn’t beauty what we yearn to burn with before we die? What else so ignites, hot flame? Beauty is all that is glory and God is Beauty embodied, glory manifested. . . . Is that why I must keep up the hunt? When I cease the beauty hunt, is that why I begin to starve, waste away?”
Ann concludes by emphasizing that our internal circuitry is wired to seek out some object of worship. If we don’t worship God, we will bow down before something else.
